Regardless of our race, religion or class, we all desire to love, to be loved and be happy. Love is one of the strongest fundamental human needs. We have read, watched and heard about beautiful tales of mesmerizing true love. Everyone wants to experience it. Everyone deserves to. The question is, does true love really exist? The answer is YES, Definitely! But how shall one find this true love?

Millions of people have asked this question and many have attempted to answer it. However, the question is not very simple. As a matter of fact, there is no clear-cut method, place and time to find true love. Although not easy to find, true love exists, and you can find it.

Here are 6 ways to find true love;

1. Love yourself. If you don’t love yourself, you can never recognize and appreciate true love from someone else. The concept of love will be elusive to you if you’ve never experienced it with yourself. Learning to love yourself will equip you with the ability to love others.

Understand yourself. Forgive yourself. Respect yourself. Believe in yourself. Be happy with yourself. It is only then you’ll be mentally and emotionally prepared to recognize true love, accept it and nourish. Many people make the mistake of finding love in other people when they still find it impossible to love themselves. This is unhealthy, and will ruin your relationship if you eventually find ‘true love’. True love starts with self.

2. Stop looking for love all over the places. True love waits. Please don’t get me wrong. You can find love anywhere. All you need is to be at the right place at the right time. Right? But where is the right place or time? My point is simple; true love is not found in a particular location. Most of the time, it finds you. This can happen anywhere, at anytime. So just wait for it and enjoy your life for the meantime. A lot of people have missed their true love because they were too desperate. No one wants a desperate person.

Love could be there in your office, neighborhood or sitting right next to you in the train. As a matter of fact, it could be sitting opposite you right now or even in some far away part of the world you’ve never been to. It will find you. People have met the love of their lives in the most unlikely places like the restroom, funeral, Facebook etc. At the end of the day, it is not WHERE you meet that counts, it is WHO you meet. Open your mind. Be sure you are not disobeying The Law of Recognition which states that – everything you need in your life is already in your life merely awaiting your recognition of it.

3. Be ready for love. No matter how much someone loves you, if you are not ready for it, it will not work out. Do you have genuine interest in other people? Can you tolerate people and forgive them when they hurt you? Do you care about others and their well-being?

If you answered “No” to any of these questions, then you are probably not ready for true love. Many people have missed out on true love because they were simply not mentally ready for it. Sometimes what we need to be ready for true love is to do what we truly love, and love will find us.

4. Define the qualities you want in your ideal mate. While you are getting ready for true love, you must also be sure to know the qualities you desire in your ideal mate.

According to Tina Su, “What we need is to identify the most important qualities that we must have in order to feel satisfied and fulfilled. By not having identified the must-have qualities in our chosen life partner, we end up settling, and since the person cannot give us the things we truly need, we start to resent them. This will snowball into larger issues.” In life, we get random results if we are not clear about want we want. Identifying qualities you desire in your ideal mate helps you recognize them when you meet them, instead of kissing all the frogs.

5. Be the ideal mate. You should realize that just like you have great qualities you want in your ideal mate, they also desire golden qualities in their ideal partner. It is important therefore to me an ideal mate. Simply put, be the kind of person you wish to attract. If you want a successful man/woman for instance, don’t be a failure. As much as true love is unconditional, some things in life are mutually exclusive.

There are some calibers of people you will never attract or meet depending on your social status. If you want to a humble partner, be a humble person yourself. Chances are slim that a humble woman will want to attract a haughty man and vise versa. Also, great qualities naturally improve your attractiveness. Everyone wants a kind-hearted, funny, generous, smart, hardworking partner. Simply be the best you can be, and true love will find you as the bees find nectar.

6. True love is not perfect. As great as it is to define important qualities you want in your partner, you must never overlook the fact that no one is perfect. You will never meet that man or woman that will be 100% what you want. You need to be able to differentiate between must haves (minimum requirements) and the plus (added advantages).

For instance, you may prefer a tall guy who is smart and has blue eyes. What will you do if he is tall, smart but has brown eyes? Whether blue eyes are a “must-have” quality or a “plus” will guide your decision. You want true love because you want to be happy. Learn to discern between what is important and what is not, what will contribute to your happiness and what will not.